Why AI Adoption in Finance Will Be Incremental, Not a "Big Bang"

In the fast-moving world of technology, it's easy to fall into the trap of expecting overnight transformation. However, in the recent episode of the Agent CFO Podcast, host Ashok Manthena and guest Caitlin Haberberger discussed why the reality of AI in finance is far more nuanced.

Ashok Manthena noted that while the pace of innovation has been rapid, the actual change on the ground remains incremental. "We all thought the world is changing at a much more rapid pace... but the pace has been fast, but still the change has been incremental," he observed. This isn't a failure of technology, but a feature of human adoption.

Instead of a "Big Bang" moment where AI suddenly replaces finance teams, we are seeing a steady erosion of manual tasks. As Caitlin Haberberger pointed out, this shift allows finance professionals to focus on what matters most.

One of the most compelling arguments for this incremental adoption is the sheer volume of "undone work" in finance departments. Ashok shared a conversation with a finance leader who wasn't looking for AI to replace staff, but to finally tackle the mountain of strategic initiatives they were too busy to touch.

"We have this big list of things that we are not doing right now because my team is very busy doing this mundane manual work," Ashok recounted.

Caitlin agreed, highlighting that this shift makes finance careers more attractive: "It’s going to be such more interesting work for everybody... people will look at this as a career path when they see the opportunity to add significant value to organizations."

We are currently only at 5-10% of what is possible with AI in finance. The journey ahead is long, but it starts with automating the reconciliations, the data entry, and the repetitive queries—one incremental step at a time.

A key driver of this incremental change is the shift in who is doing the automating. Historic automation was rigid, requiring expensive consultants and complex integrations.

Ashok highlighted a massive shift: "With AI, I think that's going to change where the end user will be able to automate their work by themselves."

Modern tools allow finance professionals to use simple prompts to automate repetitive tasks—like "repeat this reconciliation every month." This democratization means automation happens at the desk level, solving immediate problems without a massive IT project.